Apple apologizes to Samsung, insults Samsung in apology

Apple apologizes to Samsung, insults Samsung in apology

A man plays a game on the Samsung galaxy tab 10.1 during a promotional sale at a shop in Phnom Penh last October.

Apple has published an extremely passive-aggressive apology to Samsung. Or maybe it's just aggressive-aggressive.

In July, a UK High Court Judge ordered Apple to publish statements announcing more-or-less that Samsung is not a copycat. The apology statements are supposed to appear both on Apple's website and in national advertisements paid for by Apple. The orders came after the judge decided that Samsung did not copy Apple in its tablet designs, as Apple had claimed in lawsuits, BBC News reported.

Now, Apple's court-ordered apologies to Samsung have finally appeared on Apple's UK website. And for an apology, it's actually pretty insulting. It starts out with dry legal speak: "On 9th July 2012 the High Court of Justice of England and Wales ruled that Samsung Electronic (UK) Limited’s Galaxy Tablet Computer, namely the Galaxy Tab 10.1, Tab 8.9 and Tab 7.7 do not infringe Apple’s registered design No. 0000181607-0001," Apple says, before providing a link to the ruling.

But after that, the gloves come off. "In the ruling, the judge made several important points comparing the designs of the Apple and Samsung products," Apple explains in its statement. Apple then publishes quotes from the judge who had famously said that Samsung's Galaxy tablets "do not have the same understated and extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Apple design. They are not as cool." Burn.

Apple ends its apology by continuing to accuse Samsung of being a copy-cat: "So while the UK court did not find Samsung guilty of infringement, other courts have recognized that in the course of creating its Galaxy tablet, Samsung willfully copied Apple's far more popular iPad." There's your apology, Samsung. You're welcome.